


Of Course He's Loki

by HesitantlyHipsterAlien



Category: Ragnarok (TV 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Laurits-centric, Multi, No beta we paraglide like Isolde, No relationships tagged because idk what's going to happen yet, Other, Spoilers for season one, because he's a relatable little shit, rated t for language/violence/portrayal of alcohol and cigarettes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29593062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HesitantlyHipsterAlien/pseuds/HesitantlyHipsterAlien
Summary: Starts in the last 10 minutes of episode 2, when Fjor punches Oscar over an Instagram post, and continues from that moment. Gonna go ahead and call it an AU because we only have one season so far to work with and I'm making at least half of this up as I go :PChapter 1 Excerpt:Beyond the spot where they stand- or, where he and Fjor stand while Oscar sits on the ground- the distant sounds all seem to follow the same, steady pattern. The dull roar of the river, the overhead hum of the street lamp, the far off rumble of the factory. All blending together into a single expanse of white noise.Look away. Just for now. Just until you're calm again.And he does, as the voice beckons, his gaze trailing upwards towards the sky a moment. The moon looks back down on the scene from betwixt two of the many ever-billowing columns of abnormally white smoke. The stars aren’t as visible, despite the night’s clarity. Though whether that’s due to the smog or the urban skyglow, he can’t say for certain.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	1. Five Senses

_Five senses, Laurits,_ an only somewhat familiar voice reminds him from somewhere in the back of his thoughts. _Go through them. Come back to yourself._

Feeling is easiest. He feels his own pulse, kicked up in the tension of the moment, beating against his ribcage and through his skull. He feels his hands clenched in such a way that it's becoming painful to have them in that position, but he can’t yet will himself to move. He feels the tingling of fear and anxiety at the back of his throat and up his spine into his skull. 

_Focus._

Edda always smells of something. He’d noticed it their first day here, when Magne opened up the window. A cloying, altogether wrong scent that seemed to hang thick in the air like too much perfume. It gave him such a headache the first few days that he dreaded having to leave buildings, knowing that Edda’s specific (and likely pollution sourced) odor would still be there. 

He’s grown used to it now. But… sometimes he wonders if that’s actually a good thing. 

Alcohol still hangs on his lips, it's heat now greatly subdued. The stuff Fjor had in his flask had tasted oddly of cinnamon, and burned in the way those red candies that an old woman they lived across from used to give to him and Magne did. Tingly, tickling at the back of his throat and up into his nose at times. Odd, but… not unpleasant.

Beyond the spot where they stand- or, where he and Fjor stand while Oscar sits on the ground- the distant sounds all seem to follow the same, steady pattern. The dull roar of the river, the overhead hum of the street lamp, the far off rumble of the factory. All blending together into a single expanse of white noise.

_Look away. Just for now. Just until you're calm again._

And he does, as the voice beckons, his gaze trailing upwards towards the sky a moment. The moon looks back down on the scene from betwixt two of the many ever-billowing columns of abnormally white smoke. The stars aren’t as visible, despite the night’s clarity. Though whether that’s due to the smog or the urban skyglow, he can’t say for certain. 

_And now who sounds like Isolde, hmm?_

Moments pass before Laurits lets his gaze return to the scene before him. Oscar is still on the ground, hands raised in surrender, phone resting on the pavement by his hip with Instagram still open. Fjor stands a foot or so away, trembling. Not from the cold, that much is certain, but… for the life of him, Laurits cannot tell if that’s rage or fear in the older male’s eyes.

“Dude…” Oscar’s tone is breathy. Cautious even. “It was just a joke…”

“Really?” Fjor all-but-snarls, his own hands curling into fists (which, in turn, reminds Laurits to unclench his own). “And what part of it was funny, Oscar?”

“I… you’re the one who decided to piss on the memorial?” Oscar’s tone is confused. And honestly, Laurits can’t blame him. He’s still not sure how they went from joking less than ten minutes ago to Fjor punching Oscar hard enough to knock him off his feet. But, the memorial was definitely involved.

“And you think that’s the time to be snapping photos? How about earlier, when you were giving Laurits some of the Brennivín you brought to the dance with you. Did you snap pictures then?”

“Why the fuck would I snap pictures of myself, someone still not legal age to buy vodka, giving it to someone who still isn’t old enough for beer yet?” Laurits can’t help but roll his eyes at that one. He’s three months from eighteen, and literally no one- not even his own mother- has acknowledged his not yet adultness since… he can’t remember when. But, unlike Oscar, Laurits can already see the point Fjor’s making.

Oscar does get there, his realization punctuated with an ‘Oh… right’.

Fjor shakes his head, his gaze- _that’s fear, why the hell does Fjor look more scared than he does angry it doesn’t make any sense_ \- narrowing on Oscar. After a moment, he shakes his head. “Unbelievable.”

Laurits watches them, silent and unmoving. Magne probably would have done something by now. Told Fjor to take it easy, helped Oscar up, and put himself between the two of them. But, Magne is built like a brick wall. And Laurits… he has other talents, or whatever the line was that he gave about his brother on their first day at school. 

Fjor seems to give up, at this point, brushing so briskly past Oscar that for a moment there’s a danger of him stepping on the other boy’s phone. He gets into his car without so much as a glance at either Laurits or Oscar, gunning the engine as if that replaces any words he would have said. Oscar finally stands, his voice placating even as he yells to try and be heard.

“Fjor, man, come on,” He pleads, stepping a little closer to the SUV, hands still somewhat raised in surrender though it looks more now like a gentle, coaxing sort of stance than it does a frightened one. “Don’t be like this. If you’re pissed at me, that’s fine, but Laurits had no part in this. He’s barely said two words since we got out of the car.”

Fjor either doesn’t hear or doesn’t care- though Laurits is going to assume the former for… reasons- peeling out and away from them. The sound tears through the night for a moment, only to fade as quickly as it appears. Oscar drops his arms to his side, defeated.

Laurits finds his gaze trailing back to the now piss-soaked memorial. Then, it trails to the Edda Grill's frankly tasteless card- still in his hand from when Fjor handed it off after reading it aloud and mocking it's presence at the memorial. And at first, he isn’t quite sure of what he’s about to do. Until he is. Because it seems to be the only thing to do.

Carefully, he retrieves his pack of smokes, and the lighter within, from the inner pocket of his jacket. Pulling the lighter out, he sets the very corner of the card ablaze. With a few steady motions, the less damp candles are lit once more. 

Dropping the card, he stamps it out. What remains is little more than a scrap, charred dark. Still… he scoops it up, stuffing it in his back pocket to toss out later.

Isolde probably wouldn't have thanked him for any of this. Hell she probably would have seen the whole memorial as a very pretty form of littering and Fjor pissing on it as assurance that it is all just garbage, but… it would feel wrong to relight the candles only to leave the burnt trash right in front of it. 

Or something like that, he supposes.

Turning back, Laurits is unsurprised to find Oscar staring at him. Yeah… he can’t really fault that either. That probably isn’t what Oscar would have expected him to do, after all of this. It's not even what he himself expected him to do. But, it's done.

Ignoring the other male’s look of puzzlement, the ravenette returns his lighter to its proper place, retrieving his own phone from the outer pocket. Three- twenty-two a.m.

The funeral's at seven. Meaning they leave by six-thirty at the absolute latest. And home is at least an hour's walk from here, not counting however long it will take to get Oscar home because frankly he’s a bit drunker than Laurits and, well, letting him walk home alone seems… ill-advised.

_Meaning tomorrow's going to be a real fucking long day._

Sighing, Laurits returns his phone to his pocket. Finally, he meets Oscar’s confused expression, nodding towards the road ahead. When Laurits finally speaks, his voice is uncharacteristically quiet, even to his own ears. "Shall we?"


	2. Walking home sans Oscar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Svikahrappur is Icelandic for 'trickster', according to google translate.

"Are you sure you want to walk back this late at night?" Oscar asks, looking genuinely concerned. Laurits' first reaction is to bristle- to tell the other boy off with some snarky comment about being a cop's kid and thus worrying too much. But Oscar is still giving him that damn look and as much as he wants to, Laurits is too drunk and too tired to put on the tough guy act. So instead, he shakes his head.

"I'll be alright. Mum's… lenient enough with me, considering she's usually dealing with Magne," _or expecting me to deal with Magne,_ he thinks, but doesn't add aloud. "But I'm way beyond breaking curfew at this point, if I head home now I at least have a chance at sneaking in unnoticed."

Oscar frowns, but doesn't argue. The little tiff between him and Fjor already threw a wrench into the night's plans.

"Alright, just, text me when you make it back, yeah?" 

Damn Oscar. Damn his genuine concern (something very few people ever bothered to show Laurits over the years, seeing it more suitable to direct at his brother and his brother's behavior, or his mom) that Laurits doesn't know how to react to. And Damn his- as in Laurits’, not Oscar’s- stupid brain for skittering to a useless halt, no words coming to him. 

Nodding, Laurits turns- quite adeptly- on a three inch heel, trailing back toward his end of town. Home is now an hour and fifteen minutes away and it’s a little over a-quarter-to-four in the morning. He can’t waste time standing around with Oscar in silence. They barely spoke on the walk back, so no need to continue on with more nothing being said between them. 

Walking home sans Oscar is… probably the closest thing to peace that Laurits has experienced in some time. It's cool, not as cold as it should be for this time of year- _and again, who’s the one starting to sound like Isolde?_ and mostly quiet, interrupted only by the occasional dog, and the steady, rhythmic clunk of his stylish but incredibly uncomfortable boots. Boots that wouldn’t have been a problem, had he gotten a ride home from someone at school like he told his mother he would, but… hindsight and all that.

His mind trails back, unbidden, to Fjor. Or more specifically, Fjor’s eyes, and the fear that filled them upon seeing the photo Oscar had just taken. It had seemed so sudden. So visceral. So all encompassing. And it seemed so unlike the Fjor Jutul he knew so far.

_What the fuck causes fear like that?_

Lost in thought, Laurits doesn't see the sizable chunk missing from the sidewalk ahead. Instead, a step is misplaced and he stumbles, rolling his ankle. Cursing in his startlement, he grabs the nearest lampost to regain his balance.

Damn these shoes too. Right alongside Oscar. And Laurits' stubborn need to not need help from others.

It's as he's inhaling through gritted teeth, now purposely rolling his ankle to flex whatever just bent or twisted wrong, that he hears it. Peals of laughter, raspy and bemused, echoing into the night. Glancing up, Laurits' gaze meets the old woman from the Spar who speaks like she's a fortune cookie.

Well, that's mildly embarrassing. But, does it have to be?

With a flourish, Laurits twirls himself around the pole, leaning off it in the same exaggerated way he’d seen in that old American movie he and Turid watched that had something to do with singing and rain. He even half mumbles the song, somewhat in tune but not quite. To finish it off, he lets himself tumble gracelessly to the sidewalk with a ‘Thank you and good night’.

It works. The woman breaks into another fit of laughter, tottering her way over. She offers him a hand and he grins, politely shaking his head. 

"I think I'll just sit here a minute. I'd probably only pull you down," he says. She looks him up and down, brow arched as if to say 'really, kid?'. He chuckles, admittedly taking it a bit more playfully than he would if he was completely sober. "Believe me, I look small enough, but even Magne has complained I'm heavy for such a little bastard."

Granted, Magne had been trying to heft him up the stairs at an old apartment at the time because Laurits had a cast on his leg and stairs and crutches were 'too much of a risk' according to their mother. And granted, Laurits had gone deadweight to make it harder on his brother. But those details were unimportant.

The old woman studies him a moment, her gaze a sharp, burrowing thing that Laurits has to fight not to squirm under. For someone who speaks fluent nonsense, the old woman holds a startling amount of clarity in her gaze. If he didn’t know any better, Laurits would almost wonder if maybe, just maybe, she was faking being completely batshit, rambling off nonsense as a way to keep others from reading too much into what she says. 

_But he does know better… doesn’t he?_

After a moment, the old woman- he really ought to ask her name at some point, she doesn’t wear a nametag at the Spar but it feels impolite to just refer to her as ‘old woman’ in his head- produces a pack of cigarettes from a pocket within her skirt. Pulling them out, she offers him one. 

He hesitates, just a moment, then accepts it. Should he mention to her that he’s actually three months short of being “legally old enough” to smoke? Probably. Will he? Nope.

After both cigarettes are lit, the old woman leans against the pole he’d leant on earlier. Her gaze hasn’t left him, which… definitely hasn’t brought him the self conscious awareness that he’s in heels and eyeliner and his mother’s shirt. Still, Laurits shrugs it off. The lady is batshit, she probably hasn’t even realized she’s staring down at an actual person.

A beat passes before he pushes himself up, grabbing the pole for stability once more. Carefully, he tests his ankle. The pain remains, but it's dulled significantly. So either he’s still drunk, or it was just a twist. Either way, he’s not complaining.

When he turns his head, he makes direct eye contact with the woman and nearly jumps out of his skin.

“You… stare a lot. It's a bit unnerving,” He remarks, taking a drag from the cigarette. Not his usual brand. There’s a coolness behind it, so it’s a menthol… at least he thinks. Not bad, but, not something he’d smoke again though, given the choice. 

“You’ve been dancing with the giants, haven’t you Svikahrappur?” The old woman’s voice finally breaks through the silence. “Exhilarating, isn’t it?”

Laurits waits a breath, not sure if the ‘fortune cookie bullshit’ comes with a conversation option, especially since he’s not sure if that one word was a name directed at him or… what. If it's another language, it's not one he recognizes. The old woman adds nothing, her brow quirking as if attempting to further prompt an answer from him. 

_Oh. Shit. Okay._

“Is that a short joke...? I’m a perfectly normal height for my age group, Magne’s just freakishly tall,” he offers. Not that he’s sure she’ll even remember Magne- at least, not from his name- but comparing himself to Magne is and has been a fact of his entire life, so, even his defensiveness includes him.

The old woman eyes him, essentially as she has been doing the whole time, in lieu of an actual response. Laurits squints back at her, taking another drag from his cigarette. 

After a moment, the woman clicks her tongue in an almost chiding way.

“Pity that. He should have awoken you by now,” she murmurs, shaking her head. Normally, this is where Laurits would make a smartass comment. Something along the lines of ‘that’s none of your business, I haven’t asked what you and the old guy with the eyepatch get up to in your spare time’. But… for some reason, the words don’t come to him. The old woman seems happy to continue spouting whatever it is she’s spouting off.

“Perhaps it’s for the best. These journeys tend to work out better when they start individually. The giants got a head start, and the thunderous one has already come back to himself. Which just leaves you, Svikahrappur.”

So she’s definitely calling him that. That’s a name, of some sort.

He’s just about to ask her what it means, what that is that she’s calling him, when she reaches up, tapping his forehead. She then repeats the odd, Lion-King-esque-gesture that she did to Magne, but in the opposite direction. “Come now, silver-tongued fate changer, you’ve slept plenty.”

For a moment, Laurits plans to scoff. Then, polite as he can manage, tell the woman she’s off her rocker and thank her for the cigarette. Then leave.

However, that reaction is lost when his vision blurs violently and the world lurches. A thought crosses his mind. _I’m about to pass out. Do I look like I’m going to pass out? Do I have time to warn the old bat that I’m going to pass out now, or…?_

And then the world goes dark.


	3. Not Magne/Apparently-Thor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day because chapter three is short af anyhow

The mud beneath him reeks of something coppery. _Isn’t blood supposed to smell like that?_ Pain ebs from his right hip upwards towards his rib cage, sending sharp, white hot bursts throughout him with every breath. A dizzy haze clings at the corners of his senses, shrouding over him just as deeply as the ache that seems to have settled in his bones.

The effort to put his arms beneath himself is monumental. He feels like death, and for once, that doesn’t feel like an overstatement. He’s halfway through his shaky journey upwards when his left arm buckles, leaving him faceplanting unceremoniously back into the dirt. 

A familiar face appears, shuddering into focus, soaked by the apparent rain and backed by a copse of scraggly trees and thick, wooly gray clouds.

_Magne?_

The taller, broader blond eyes him, looking almost disgusted. When he speaks, the language sounds both alien and like home.

**_”Loki, you damned fool,”_** the man- who looks like Magne, but is decidedly not Magne as he doesn’t seem to know who Laurits is at all- half speaks, half snarls. **_”You’ve brought an end to all of us, and look at you, you won’t even last to see the end of it.”_**

A ragged, strangled laugh escapes him, unbidden. With it, another jolt of pain, sending stars through his vision.

**_”Odin always planned for you and I to rival one another. He took your side. So I had to seek allies elsewhere. It got me betrayed, unsurprisingly. But, if you’ve only come to scold me, save your breath,”_** a voice that sounds like Laurits’, but isn’t- can’t possibly be, as it speaks a language he’s still not sure he actually knows- rasps out. Agonized. **_”This death is slow enough without your lecture.”_**

The man who looks like Magne but is decidedly not Magne frowns, looking off at something _Loki apparently_ doesn’t have the strength to reposition and look towards. Then, the man who isn’t Magne sighs, pulling a hammer from its place hanging at his waist.

_Wait… is he… Thor?_

**_”I’ll grant you one last mercy, brother,”_** Not Magne/Apparently-Thor says gravely. **_”I… had hoped we’d have been able to come out of this as allies… like we once were, back before… Mmn, no matter.”_**

And Apparently-Loki, who’s form Laurits seems to be experiencing this… odd, memory-like dream from (as that’s what Apparently-Thor called him, so he assumes that must be who he is) barely has time to suck in a sharp breath before a sickening crunch rakes the darkness inwards from around the edges of his vision.

0-0-0-0-0

The first thing he is aware of is that it’s definitely brighter out here. The second is that cold cement, not oddly coppery mud, is beneath him. And he is in significantly less pain.

Groaning, Laurits peels his eyes open. _Fuck me, that’s the sunrise,_ he thinks, carefully pushing himself up. His arms aren’t shaking- _why would they be, it was a dream… right?-_ and, more importantly, the world doesn’t spin nauseatingly or threaten to make him puke his guts up. In fact, his head remains clear, despite the fact that he apparently straight up passed out last night.

The question is, did he actually pass out when he thinks he did? Or, did he trip harder than he thought and pass out then? That would explain why his ankle doesn’t hurt, and the weird name the old woman kept calling him. 

_Not to mention the fact I passed the fuck out after she Simba-ed me or whatever that was,_ he muses, pushing up to his feet and dusting himself off. Grimacing, he checks his phone- five-seventeen a.m. and sixteen-percent battery. Hopefully, Oscar passed out, and isn’t still up waiting for Laurits’ text, otherwise the other boy is going to be pissed at him.

And he’s already going to have to put up with his mother.

Laurits takes the rest of the walk home at a brisk pace. The funeral is soon. Turid has likely worked herself into a fit at this point. And Magne is probably sat, watching stoically as their mother tries to awaken a son who isn’t sleeping because he isn’t even home, as… well… what else would Magne be doing?

_Certainly not scolding me, thank you very much, weird dream,_ Laurits half scoffs to himself. Raking a hand through his tangled black curls, he hopes to god (or the gods, if the whole Christianity thing is actually bullshit?) that he doesn’t look like he spent the night asleep on the sidewalk after tripping over his ridiculous boots that absolutely had to go with his outfit from the dance.

He arrives home just shy of forty-five minutes later. Turid is definitely going to be pissed at him.


	4. Open Windows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Me, an American whose school day always started between 6:30 and 6:50 am, seeing that in Norway high school classes start at 8:15 am (according to google): … god I wish that had been me

Rather than thrashing awake, half desperate to detangle himself from the clingy, restrictive bedsheets and half still trying to swim to the surface of the pressing, dark water he normally finds himself pulled beneath in his nightmares, Laurits simply startles into it. Like having the sharp, biting chirp of his phone’s alarm clock feature yank him back into reality. Only, his phone alarm hasn’t gone off yet.

Because it's four-thirty in the fucking morning.

Huffing out an irritable breath, Laurits rolls onto his back, glowering at the black-and-white skeleton surfing across the band poster that hangs above his bed. He’d try to go back to sleep, but, if the last three nights (as in the night after Isolde’s funeral/the day their house was robbed, and the two nights following that) are any evidence, it's pointless. Now that he’s jolted back into consciousness, his pulse drumming against his temples in a way most unpleasant, he’ll only grow more restless until he gets up.

It’s bullshit. And it's all thanks to that fucking night he spent passed out on the sidewalk. 

Grumbling under his breath, Laurits pushes himself upright, opening his phone to check his messages, because he doesn’t have to get up for school until six (to leave the house by seven, maybe seven-fifteen at the latest, to arrive at school somewhere around eight-oh-five, ten minutes before the start of the school day). There are a few from Oscar, who remained mad at Laurits for not texting to say he’d made it home alright for all of about two minutes. One from Gry, asking about homework, that he probably should have answered last night. And one from Saxa, asking his opinion about two different shirts. 

Shifting to sit cross legged, Laurits opens the convo with Saxa, and turns to open his window so he can sneak in a cigarette before moving the towel he’d placed along the bottom of the door last night.

Only the window is already open.

_Just like it had been in the dream, when it ended. The dream that started with him waking to an awful burning sensation all across his skin, like a million tiny needles all prickling into him at once. That then led to him stumbling up, stripping off his hoodie, drawing jagged breaths into lungs that felt like his ribs were shrinking around them. A dizziness filling him, followed by white hot agony and him tumbling to the floor. Only, when he hit the ground, he was much lighter than normal. His thoughts scattered, he thrust himself forward with a flap of motion, careening up and out the window, arriving into the open night air with an almost instinctive skill. One loop, then another, beneath the moon’s cool observance, and then back through the window and into the tangled sheets with a soft and muffled thump. A tiredness had filled him then, so sudden and strong that he’d barely had the wherewithal to pull back into his boxers and sweatshirt before sinking down onto the bed._

“No!” He hisses, startling yet again when he realizes it was said aloud and not just thought, like he meant it to be. _No, it was just a dream. Not real. Didn’t happen. I just forgot to shut the window after I was smoking last night,_ he reasons, or perhaps scolds. 

Shaking his head, he retrieves the cigarettes from the hidden part at the back of the drawer in his bedside table. Pulling one out, he lights it, taking a drag before looking back to the text from Saxa. He messages her back that the teal blouse would better compliment her eyes, while the pink sweater would match the theme of the rest of her outfits this week more. A non-answer, but, so far, that’s usually what she wants. Input, but no definite decision.

Next, ignoring the fact that it's still well before five a.m., he opens the message from Gry. She’s asking about the reading material for history class, and if he did last night’s assigned reading. He didn’t, and tells her so with a short ‘nope :)’.

And then all Oscar really sent him was a string of memes, more testing if Laurits was still awake than actually conversing. And while Laurits had been- awake, that is- he had been pointedly ignoring his phone. As an apology, Laurits sends back one he'd saved of a half possessed looking cat that only says 'Loops' that he only vaguely remembers making him laugh hysterically, despite its nonsensicality.

School is actually kind of hell without his headphones. If the cops haven’t fixed shit by the end of the week and figured out who broke in, he may just have to take matters into his own hands (and probably Magne’s, if he’s being honest with himself about his abilities to be at all intimidating enough to get their shitty neighbor with the trailer- who Laurits has already pinpointed as absent from the funeral and likely to break in and steal their shit- to fess up and tell them where the hell Laurits' headphones are).

But, he has to make it through the school day first.

Messages answered and cigarette finished, Laurits closes his window as quietly as the creaky old building will allow him to. Re-locking it, a seemingly pointless but habitual gesture, he then retrieves the towel from where it was rolled up in front of his door. With that tossed back under the end of his bed- where it will remain until he inevitably needs to block the door again- he moves to dig through the clean pile of his clothes, the one that has lived in his desk chair for the last two days (as opposed to the dirty pile that lives in the laundry basket).

Sighing, he picks up one of his many black tees. Not the one he wanted. Folding it, he sets it aside. Another tee, but still not the right one, gets folded and stacked atop it. Lather, rinse, repeat, until he’s made it through the pile. 

At the head of his bed, the tee he was looking for, a pair of skinny jeans, clean socks and boxers, and a pullover sweater all now lay in a heap. Quickly, he replaces all the now folded laundry into the appropriate drawers, before once again checking his phone.

Five-twenty-two a.m. A ‘Thx ILY :)’ from Saxa. A ‘Did you actually go to bed or are you still up?’ from Gry. And nothing from Oscar. Since Saxa’s text requires no reply, he texts Gry a sarcastic ‘Yes mom’ with an eye roll emoji. Then he gathers his clothes.

May as well shower since he has the time and won’t likely be interrupted by his mum or brother this early.


	5. All Too Aware

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Probably out-of-character interactions between Fjor and Laurits? In my fic? Its likely

He makes it through the first ten minutes of first period before it registers that today is going to be exponentially worse than the previous two days have been. 

It starts small. First with the buzz of the overhead fluorescent lights pressing their way into his awareness like a worm burrowing into the earth. Slowly, but, persistently. Next, it's the ticking of the wall clock, a repetitive tic-tic-tic-tic layered on top of the buzzing. And then, someone two rows back- Rasmuss, Laurits thinks his name is- begins clicking a pen in the way teens tend to do when in need of something to fidget with.

And Laurits is all too aware of every one of these sounds.

By the time class ends and they are freed to the hallways, a familiar tightness is coiled just behind Laurits’ ribcage. It lays in wait there. A looming, patient threat of all the air being sucked from his lungs and all the sounds growing too loud and the whole damn school witnessing him rattled and trembling and raw.

Overstimulation at its… he doesn’t want to say finest, because that implies a positive and there’s nothing positive about it. But, at its most inconvenient level, he supposes.

He’s debating what to do next- feign illness and go to the nurse? No, Magne would tell Turid and then she’d spend the evening fussing over him, attention he didn’t want. Skipping was an option, he supposed, but, he’d be walking and someone would likely catch him that way. And that would also only make things worse- when a hand settling on his shoulder nearly makes him jump out of his skin.

Turning, he meets eyes with Fjor, whose expression is… uncharacteristically concerned. 

From what he'd seen of him so far, Fjor doesn't get concerned. Amused, angry, and sarcastic, yes. But concern seemed like one of those emotions that would be alien to the other teen. 

And...since when does Fjor have orangey-gold eyes with pupils like some kind of wild animal? 

Blinking a few times, Laurits doesn't realize he's being spoken to until Fjor's arm shifts to be around his shoulders, jostling him slightly. Fjor, eyes- _again with the eyes being weird_ \- now their usual, intensely dark brown, frowns slightly. He’s just about to speak when Laurits’ brain finally decides to function enough to form words.

“Sorry, what?” He interjects, stuffing his hands into his jacket’s pockets to hide the fact that they’re shaking. “I… you definitely said words but I have to be honest with you I didn’t understand anything you just said.”

Fjor raises a brow, still frowning and still looking more concerned than Laurits is used to seeing him. His gaze seems to bore into Laurits the same way the woman from the Spar’s did the other night.

_In the dream. It was just a dream._

“Are you okay?” Fjor asks after a moment. And Laurits briefly debates lying to him. He would with literally anyone else. Turn to a lie of evasion by making a joke about how whatever they were saying was so instantly boring his brain just refused to acknowledge it beyond the fact that they were, in fact, speaking. But… those responses aren’t always as easy with Fjor, for some reason. And more often than not, Laurits finds himself being abnormally honest with Fjor.

“Kind of? I mean, I’m fine, I’ll be fine. It's just… everything is so fucking loud today and my headphones were part of what was taken in the robbery and without them I can’t block it all out at all,” Laurits finally answers, feeling oddly sheepish doing so. Fjor studies him a moment, then gently sighs, squeezing Laurits’ shoulder.

“Here, c’mon.”

With that, Fjor deftly steers them through the crowd, managing a wide enough arc around their usual friend group that if any of them are curious as to what’s happening, they don’t bother trying to shout it after the pair. It's only once they're down the steps and across the lawn to where an aging bench rests between two birch trees, that Fjor releases his guiding grip on Laurits' shoulders. 

Laurits almost, only almost, misses the steady weight that arm had provided. Instead of seeking it once again, though, he lets himself drop onto the bench, resting his head in his hands. For a moment, his focus trains on the distant wail and rumble of the factories. On the whisper of wind and the faint roar of the river that splits Edda somewhere towards down the middle. Of the chatter of the school halls, now dulled, freed only by a few opened windows.

The slight shake of the bench alerts him that Fjor, rather than just leaving him out here and going back to flirt with Gry or hang out with the others, has sat beside him. Taking a deep breath, Laurits slowly lifts his head to meet the other boy’s watchful stare.

His eyes are still brown. Not the orangey gold he saw- _thought he saw? Fuck, why does Edda screw with his perception so bad?-_ when he first looked up and caught Fjor’s gaze in the hallway. And his expression is still oddly concerned. Sighing shakily, Laurits carefully pulls his cigarettes from his jacket pocket, offering Fjor one- an offer which is politely declined- before pulling out one for himself.

“What caused that?” Fjor asks, gesturing vaguely back towards the school. Again, a sarcastic/humorous response comes to mind, something about people in Edda having no better way to kill time and not using condoms as often as they should. And again, the response dies before it reaches Laurits’ lips. 

“Anxiety,” he instead says, very simply. “It… gets bad, every once in a while. And normally. I’d just hide in my headphones. Maybe act a little less sociable than on an average day- Magne’s told me before I’m kind of an asshole when it gets bad, though… he doesn’t usually have the context of why I’m being an asshole. Just that I’m particularly more of an asshole than usual- but… like I said, I don’t have my headphones. So I couldn’t get away from it before a few small annoying things turned into…”

“Overstimulation,” Fjor concludes. Laurits nods, letting his gaze trail to the ground in front of him. A beat passes, before Fjor asks: "Wait, you said he doesn't have context… does your brother not know?"

Laurits can only shake his head.

"Your mom?" Another head shake. Another beat passes, then Laurits feels a hand settle on his shoulder, squeezing lightly. "Have you tried telling either of them?"

"Can't with Magne. Just… it… not him. I tried to tell my mum once, but… she just started to tear up and I could practically see her realizing just how screwed she was if both her kids had issues and how that would lead to her spiraling again like she does and," Laurits pauses, taking another drag from the cigarette as a way to let his thoughts slow back down again. "...I just didn't. Dropped it, never brought it up again."

"Laurits…"

"I know… I know," Laurits doesn't dare look at Fjor. The tone of voice the other used when saying his name was telling enough. "Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. But I'm not **technically** ignoring it. I'm just… putting it on the back burner, for now. It's a priority but… it's low priority."

"Until when?" Fjor's tone holds the faintest hint of incredulousness, but Laurits can't really blame him for it. "Until your brother moves out?"

"Or until I do," Laurits offers, finally hazarding a glance at Fjor. The older boy's brows are furrowed. He almost looks angry, though whether it's at Laurits or on Laurits' behalf, the ravenette can't say for certain. Instead of dwelling on it, he adds. "There's no time limit on getting help, really. Might be easier just to do it when I'm on my own and there's no one to worry about me."

Fjor frowns, but there's no edge to it. "People being worried about you isn't necessarily a bad thing, y'know?"

"Depends on why they're worried," Laurits counters. "Some people worry cause they care. Others… others worry because they feel obligated to."

"And you think Magne would?" Fjor's frown deepens. Laurits shakes his head, taking the final drag from his cigarette. Crushing it out on the ground by the bench, he finds himself taking the remaining stub and stuffing it in his jacket pocket. Isolde's influence prevailing, he supposes.

"Not Magne," he says. He doesn't add the _Mum probably would though._ But then, Fjor seems to understand even without him saying it.


	6. The New Norm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do I have an uploading schedule or is it just that I conveniently have time and energy to write once a week lol?
> 
> Small CW for the sounds breaking bones make

Bulbous, angry clouds make the night sky a near obsidian in color, rather than the blue-black of a clear night. Rain beats down on anything foolish enough to be outside, soaking thoroughly in a matter of seconds. The local fauna seem to have bedded down, retreated to burrows or the depths of the woods to escape the onslaught of precipitation. Sounds dull beyond the steady, rhythmic downpour and occasional howl of wind. 

Ahead of him, a massive expanse of ice sits nestled in a cluster of sharp, car-sized boulders. Despite the pitch dark of the surrounding storm, he can still see the mist rise off the white expanse, as the downpouring rain remains warmer than it.

And that’s odd. This high up the mountain, it should be snowing. And yet, all the way up here, the rain still manages to melt ice that shouldn’t be melting at all. 

It’s wrong. Just as Edda as a whole is wrong. From the sickly sweet stench that hangs in its air, to the sick and dying inhabitants, breathing in toxic fumes, drinking from polluted waters, and eating poisoned fish. For a town that advertises with the line ‘Together we have made Edda a cleaner place’, it really is little more than a cancerous pockmark.

And yet, the only one who saw Edda’s wrongness for what it was crashed while paragliding through a storm that wasn’t yet happening. 

Something of hers is still up here. Standing in a shaggy, dark furred form, he can sense it. Her scent clings to this area, despite the time since her passing only growing with every wail and rumble of the storm overhead. It's strong though. Strong enough that it drew him up here. Strong enough to assure him that Isolde left more than her life behind amongst these towering, reproachful stones.

He sniffs, head lifted into the winds, unbothered by the pressing wet coming at him from all sides. Closer. Towards where the melting ice has revealed a cave. Something of hers is there. 

A little further back, within the cave, there is another scent. A sharper, less natural thing that hurts to pick up on too much, and would likely pull a cough from his chest, were he in a form with less sturdy lungs. As it stands, he’s managing, but he isn’t keen on getting too much closer to it. On an instinctual level, that scent is danger. A toxin. A warning.

He’s debating. Go towards Isolde’s remaining scent, see if he can’t find what was forgotten- a task which not only means getting closer in proximity to something that’s setting his nerves on edge even from this distance, but would also leave him in possession of something that may do more harm than help, depending who it was given to- or explore a bit more of the area, while this form holds. He’s been at it for some time now, unsure of how long specifically as telling time like this is… tricky. 

However, it seems he’s waited too long and no longer gets a choice.

Approaching footfalls- light, well versed in this terrain, but noticeably humanoid- interrupt his thoughts. Growling, irritated at the loss of his chance, he turns, paw pads digging into the earth as he begins the arduous journey back down. Back towards home.

0-0-0-0-0

Laurits is barely even bothered, at this rate. It's just sort of the norm now.

In some dreams, he’s back in that place he dreamt of the first night- the sidewalk night- blood soaked earth beneath him and the ache of a knife to the kidney coursing throughout his form. Other times, it's older memories (the theme of the dreams, that is) in which he is apparently Loki and Magne appears to be Thor. Bits of childhood and other times before the battle- before the blood and the agony and the nauseating final crunch- recollected while he sleeps. Most, however, are more similar to the night of the open window, where his skin prickled and his lungs felt crushed and he tumbled back into the sheets less than two minutes later. 

Last night’s dream is no different, really. Sure, instead of prickling, his skin simply burned near feverishly. And sure, his bones broke and rearranged with audible cracks and pops as his form shifted to something that stood lower to the ground. And the ache in his jaw and the heightened sense of smell were both new. But, on a base level, it’s the same kind of dream. A shapeshifting dream.

Rolling onto his side, Laurits glances at the clock. Four forty-two a.m. Not too far off the new norm, he supposes. Sitting up, he glances at his bedroom.

It's tidier than he’s kept it in years. All these early mornings and the almost instant, restless energy when he wakes lead to a lot of willingly doing his own chores. His mum seemed happy enough when she saw the room last night, so no harm done. 

The thing is… much like his growing used to the perfume-esque odor of their hometown… he’s not quite sure this is a good thing. Sure, the dreams barely pass as frightening. They’re more surreal than they are a cause for alarm. And sure, he’s been able to do the things he ought to do at a time too early in the morning for anyone to nag him to do it and immediately change his mind from ‘I’ll do this’ to ‘fuck you, don’t tell me what to do’. But, something about it is worrying him.

See, he never fell. The night he spent on the sidewalk, he misplaced his footing, twisted his ankle, and stumbled forward a few clumsy, clunking steps before catching himself on the lamppost. But he never fell. Never went anywhere near the ground.

Which means he didn’t pass out until after his very, very weird encounter with the old woman.

He’s been thinking it over for days now. He wanted to believe it was a dream, that he just tripped and passed out when he hit the ground. But lack of bruises or cuts, a lack of hangover, and the fact that he’d gone back and looked on the way home from school, and realized he would have had to fly five feet forwards after tripping in order to land where he woke up, say otherwise. As does the menthol cigarette stub.

Where his are brown at the end, white only on the part one's meant to burn, the one the old woman had is solid white, split by a single stripe that denotes the end of the tobacco and the beginning of the filter. And he found it in his coat pocket yesterday. Alongside the one from the bench with Fjor, a few others, and the remaining, burnt scrap of the condolence card from the Edda Grill. 

He has it still. He threw the rest out, but the white stub resides next to his cigarette pack in the hidden compartment behind the false back of his bedside table drawer. It's solid, and it's real, and… it terrifies him.

Sitting up, Laurits pulls his knees to his chest. If the weird, simba-lion-king-head-touch-thing really caused him to pass out then… what if… what if the window really was open because, despite how impossible and unreal it sounds, he really did violently shift from a human into a crow, fly out his bedroom window, and fly back in, passing out moments later from sheer exhaustion? 

What if Magne really did throw a hammer one-point-five kilometres? He’d certainly predicted the weather right after his own encounter with the old woman, despite the impossibility of that.

 _No. There’s no way,_ he reasons. _It's just been a weird adjustment period. Stress of moving to a new town, then the shock of Magne’s friend dying, then the robbery. It's just been too many weird or bad things happening one right after the other. The crazy old hag is just that. She’s crazy and she got in your head and it will pass._

Shaking off the building tightness in his chest, he pushes his blankets the rest of the way off. He’s got to shower and get ready for the day. Business as usual.

Only… when he moves to climb out of the bed, his bare feet brush against something that startles him into recoiling back onto it. Something chilled and damp, crumpled right beside his bed. Frown tugging at his lips, Laurits clicks on his lamp, looking down at what he just stepped on.

A pair of his jeans and a black hoodie- the outfit he had been wearing last night- lay crumpled on the floor, still soaked through. A mere glance at the window, at the still present puddles reflecting the streetlamps outside and the water droplets left behind on the glass, confirms that it was definitely still raining last night too.

… what the fuck.


End file.
